


Prison Toys

by Pterodotyl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Blood, D/s themes, Dark!Lance, Dehumanization, Dominance, Grooming for a purpose, M/M, Muteness, Power Imbalance, Suggestive Themes, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, humans as pets, vampires are sterile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 18:58:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pterodotyl/pseuds/Pterodotyl
Summary: Lance wasn't sure why he didn't kill the young boy he found covered in blood that night, but part of him thought it might be fun to keep him until he got bored.If and when it happened, then he would figure out what to do with him.





	Prison Toys

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a song of the same name from the game "Little Nightmares", which you guys should give a try if you have time! It's nice, short, and incredibly atmospheric.

Whenever anyone asked him why he'd done it, Lance always had the same answer prepared.

"Because it seemed like fun."

It was only partially a lie. If he had to be entirely honest, he wouldn't be able to say _why_ he spared the tiny child he found tucked away, covered in the aftermath of his parents' murder and white as a sheet. Anyone else in his shoes at that moment would have looked at the offspring of a pair of Hunters and done what was needed.

Instead, Lance had let his eyes linger on the eight bloody claw marks dug into the boy's shoulders as they bled through his shirt and been fascinated by his silence.

So he took the boy home. Tidied him up and wiped the blood from the boy's face as much as he licked it, and all the while the child stayed quiet, without fuss. When he dressed him, it was more of an afterthought, a measure to keep out the cold, but the boy seemed to take it as a gesture of comfort and clung to him.

He was a funny little thing.

Lance decided he would keep him until he was bored. If and when it happened, then he would figure out what to do with him.

At first the boy was loathed to be parted from him and would cling with surprising strength any time Lance tried to put him down. It had been funny at first, listening for whimpers that never came as the boy scrambled to hold tight to his shirt, his hair, his neck. When he was the most distressed, he liked to press his too-warm face into the space of his shoulder and keep it there. He could feel the boy's wild pulse against his cool skin but not once did he utter a sound. Even when Lance grew tired of their little game and wrenched the boy back forcibly there was no wail; no keen of distress. He simply stared, a silent plea in his eyes that Lance couldn't make sense of.

He left him in his room and closed the door behind him, any moment expecting to hear screaming or yelling. Maybe even the sound of tiny fists as they beat desperately at the door...but there was nothing. And when he returned a day later after a fresh kill and blood still on his lips he found the boy exactly as he'd left him, legs tucked to his chest and his arms wrapped tight around them.

He looked up at Lance when he entered but did nothing. Lance cocked his head to the side and waited. Still he did nothing. He wondered if the boy was broken, if he'd made a mistake in bringing the silly thing with him as he reached out and gathered the small child up into his arms.

Tiny hands reached for him again like clockwork, more stiffly than before. The smell hit him a moment later and Lance's nose wrinkled in disgust. He looked down and found the carpet below the boy darkened and wet.

With an annoyed huff he carried the boy off and bathed him. He went quietly and didn't try to struggle or squirm as Lance yanked off his clothes and deposited him in too-cold water. He didn't complain as Lance took a sponge to his arms and legs and scrubbed them until they turned an unhappy red.

It was only when he reached the puncture wounds that the boy finally flinched under his touch, and it took Lance a moment to realize why. Without the cover of ammonia and blood to hide it, it was easy to catch the scent of infection coming from the wounds. When he leaned in to inspect and scent them he found their edges yellowed and grey, the skin around it tender and puffy.

Lance blinked, nonplussed.

Humans were so fragile, he thought in annoyance. Why did he ever bother to keep one? Not only had it soiled itself in his absence, but it was rotting now too. So unpleasant.

Still he leaned forward and tended to them as he would any of his own wounds, laving his tongue over the hot spots. The infection tasted sour and unpleasant on his tongue, but he lapped it up anyway. When he was done he pulled back and hummed with satisfaction at the already-lessened swelling. It would scar, but he wouldn't spoil any further.

Lance became more vigilant after that.

Every day he gathered the tiny boy into his arms, bathing the wounds with his mouth until the sickly-sweet scent of infection no longer lingered on his skin. Once or twice he found himself licking lazy stripes up and down the tender flesh of the youth's neck and contemplated biting down. But then tiny fingers would weave and curl their way into the back of his neck and Lance would hum, thoughtful.

Maybe not yet.

Human children, as it turned out, were far needier than Lance had first anticipated. Although he could subsist just fine on a large meal every couple of days, the boy grew pale and weak without fluids after only a day. By the time Lance had realized, he'd been too weak to lift the glass to his own lips and Lance had soaked his fingers in water to wet his tongue until strength returned to his body.

Food was another hassle. A diet of blood was plenty sufficient for a vampire, but not so the boy. He needed other sustenance: fruits. Vegetables. Meat. Things Lance had long ago lost interest in knowing how to handle or prepare.

It would be easier to have someone else handle such matters. Someone well-versed in what humans needed. He was getting tired of trying to feed the boy whatever scraps his own meals left lying around their homes when he visited.

A caretaker would be best, he decided, and procured the boy a nanny: a stout woman in her early twenties who Lance thought looked well-fed. It was remarkably easy to convince her of her new line of work when the alternative was a quick and messy death. He brought her home that evening and presented the boy with his newest gift. He didn't seem to know what to make of her. The look of confusion he wore made Lance smile. He placed a hand on his head as a reward.

"I've brought someone to cook and clean for you," he told him kindly. "She is a present. You may use her for whatever you need."

He ignored the disquieted look the woman sent his way and stroked the boy's hair lightly until tiny eyes closed and he leaned into the touch.

"You're s-sick," she whimpered. "Why are you doing this? He's just a child...! Please, just...just let us go. I swear I won't tell anyone, just l-let us go home..."

"I think it is dinner time," Lance said, gathering the youth up into his arms without looking at her. "Have something prepared in an hour. Something he will like. If he does not eat, then I will."

The woman blanched.

"P-please, no..."

"An hour," he repeated, fiddling with a strand of hair as it fell across the boy's face. "You should get started."

Meals become routine after that, and despite the nuisance of keeping stock, it was a welcomed addition. Proper nourishment truly did work wonders for a child; Lance noticed a marked change in the boy after only a day. He had more energy and was not so listless. Strength returned to his tiny hands and Lance was reaffirmed of his decision.

He kept the woman until the inevitable moment when she mistook mere routine for complacency and attempted escape, and when he had finished bleeding her dry Lance apologized to the boy and promised to bring him another. "One that will stay longer," he said.

They went through six in as many years before they found one that seemed to stick. The boy never once complained.

It was perhaps what Lance came to love most about him, when he thought about it. His reluctance to cry out in fear or pain had been a point of interest in the beginning, but as the boy grew, Lance came to covet and prize every noise he withheld. The people Lance hunted were always so loud; begging, screaming, crying, yelling. Swearing they'd do anything he wanted, that they'd make him suffer a thousand deaths. It seemed they couldn't exist without making some manner of sound.

But not his little pet.

There were times he found it frustrating, in the beginning. When he'd demand an answer from him and receive nothing in return. Conversations were horribly one-sided and he could glean no satisfaction that way when he dealt with the boy. Sometimes he would lie him down and spend up to an hour slowly lapping at his neck, nibbling the flesh and willing whatever invisible damage had been done to heal so that he could speak. The boy would quiver at first, pulse fluttering invitingly beneath his lips.

Tiny hands would come up and cradle his head, never once pulling or trying to tug him away no matter how hard his little heart beat furiously inside his chest. It was the one sound the boy couldn't keep from him, and Lance found it almost hypnotic. Long after he gave up trying to coax the boy's throat into recovery he continued to lie against him, head pressed against his tiny ribcage as he listened to the steady racing of his heart.

He was such a funny little thing, nothing at all like the human children Lance observed when he went out. They ran, they laughed, they played. They chased one another and shrieked with delight.

He brought him to such a place, once, curious to see how he would react. He wondered if he too would run and give chase, if his mouth would split with soundless laughter. He couldn't imagine what his laughter might sound like. It would ill-suit him, probably.

Much to his surprise though, the boy did not run off the moment Lance gave him leave to go. He stood still at Lance's side and merely observed them, his eyes glinting with anticipation. It was not the look of a boy seeking play. His interest was too sharp; too keen.

He followed every movement and liked the fastest ones best. When they called out to one another his head would snap in that direction and Lance watched with building delight as the boy's lips parted. Still-developing muscles flexed in his neck as he drew in a breath. His nostrils flared and Lance's lips curved in bemusement.

It all made sense when a loud screech rang out through the park minutes later, but this time it wasn't one of mirth and joy; it was pain and terror, shrill and cutting. Lance watched as a child broke past him, their arm clutched tight in red-soaked fingers. The scent of blood trailed thick behind them and when Lance followed it back to its source he found his little pet standing amidst the swing sets, lips and chin smeared with blood and a look that was equal parts confusion and displeasure on his face.

He was smacking his lips but his tongue hung out in disgust, almost like he was...

 _Ah_.

The lightbulb went off in Lance's head and he almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all.

His little pet had been _hunting_.

Lance was so charmed by the revelation that the boy's first instinct had been to hunt his own kind rather than join in that he was still muffling his snickers into the poor thing's neck when he licked his face clean and explained to him that he was not, in fact, meant to prey upon humans. That he _was_ one and couldn't drink their blood.

He looked so dismayed by the information that Lance nibbled at his skin until he trembled and the scent of salt hit his nose. He shushed him softly as he pressed a gentle kiss to the hollow of the boy's neck, and bit down.

When he grew tired of calling the boy "the boy", he gave him a name: Keith.

It seemed pointless to hold off on it after keeping him so long. When company visited it was inconvenient to have nothing to call him beyond "pet" or "sweetling." Keith was taller and stronger with each passing day; gone was the tiny thing that fit so perfectly in his arms it seemed a part of him, and in its place was a boy on cusp of maturity.

Lance knew little of human desire beyond how easy it made them to manipulate as adults, and though Keith had never shown any inclinations as a child, that changed as he entered his teenage years. The scent of youth and vigor soured with sweat; soon after came the thicker musk of arousal, and Lance was less used to the idea of _that_ lingering on Keith's skin when he lavished attention on him or sucked blood from his wounds.

It was easy enough to overlook once he got used to it. Keith was simply transitioning into adulthood, a perfectly normal thing for a human to do. The smell took some adjusting to, but he found he enjoyed other aspects of it quite a bit.

When he traced pulse points with his tongue there were anxious little quivers and half-presses of heat-soaked flesh; abortive gestures where Keith couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to cling to Lance or let go of him like he burned. More than once he trapped his own hand between his legs and pressed them together until his musky scent became heady and _wet_ and he trembled all over.

His heart was a rabbit caught in a trap in those moments, and Lance prized each nervous flutter as it escaped. The gentle thudding turned to pounding drums inside Keith's chest whenever Lance deigned to touch him. Sometimes he would set the cool pads of his fingers against the boy's neck from behind and idly trail them over his swell of his Adam's apple. Keith's breath would hitch and he'd go stock-still, and Lance would wait until he was a wire wound and poised to snap beneath his grasp before he'd pull his hand away and leave the boy standing, confused and flushed.

Lance, it seemed, knew more about what was happening to his body than Keith did. The thought brought him no small measure of entertainment. He delighted in watching the poor thing stumble as he tried to navigate his way through an early pubescence left unfulfilled and laced with heat he didn't know how to channel.

He tried to bring home a younger human for Keith, once. Something to sate his growing desires and help him work out the fire in his blood. Keith stared at the girl Lance had picked out for him with a frown of incomprehension and opened his mouth. Lance shook his head.

"She is not for eating."

The girl wept.

Keith blinked and laid a hand over his stomach, and Lance's smirk only grew more amused.

"She is not here to care for you either."

The fact that Keith didn't seem to know what to make of her beyond those two ideas nearly brought Lance to tears of mirth and he grinned, striding up from behind and cupping his jaw with both hands. He turned Keith to face the girl as she shrunk back against the wall and cowered, her pretty eyes wet and glistening. Her lower lip trembled.

"She is a gift," Lance murmured beside his ear, the same sweet words he'd used countless times before. But this time Keith inhaled sharply. His pulse thundered under Lance's hands. "Use her as you see fit."

He let one hand fall, the pads of his fingers trailing slowly over Keith's searing-hot skin. They traced a path all the way down his front, catching and sliding over the thin material of his shirt. His thumb caught on the leather of Keith's belt and he ran it along the edge in a deliberately slow motion.

"You want it, right?" He allowed his lips to barely ghost the outer shell of Keith's ear. The boy wavered. Nodded weakly. "Then..." Lance allowed himself to trail off and deftly flicked the belt buckle open. It clinked as it fell open, and he felt the stutter in Keith's chest more than he heard it when the boy drew in a nervous breath. He tried to nudge him towards the girl, but Keith shook his head weakly.

"No?" Lance blinked. Keith wet his lips nervously and nodded. Lance considered him for a moment, the obvious scent of arousal dripping from every pore. He pressed a hand between his legs and found him hard and Keith shuddered, but eventually Lance gave a thoughtful sound and pulled back. "As you wish. I'll bring you something else, next time."

And he did. He brought more girls. Boys too, of all sorts and sizes. Anything that looked like they might tickle his fancy. But Keith dismissed all of them despite the bone-deep arousal that clung to him in those moments. When Lance asked him what he wanted he could only stare, pitiful and aching and beseeching in a way that had the vampire smiling.

It was painfully obvious what Keith wanted from him. It was in his eyes, the way he moved, the way his breathing hitched and his heart stuttered every time Lance was near. When he mouthed at the twin scars left over from his first bite, Keith's body shuddered and his thighs pressed together. It came as no surprise to him when he passed by the boy's room one night and caught the sound of rustling sheets and soft, barely-contained gasps.

Satisfied, Lance presented Keith with a new gift in the week following:

A single, curved blade.

"I want you to use this starting today," Lance told him. Keith stared at the offering held out before him with confusion but slowly reached out to take it. Slender fingers curled around the hilt and gripped it with a familiarity which seemed to surprise him.

"It's a Marmoran Blade," Lance said. "Perfectly balanced, made explicitly for killing. The trademark tool of a Hunter."

He watched with growing pleasure as Keith turned it over in his hands and ran his finger along the blade curiously, flinching when it sliced neatly into the tip. His eyes widened with fascination and he looked back to Lance, awed as he offered up his finger. He flushed when Lance flicked his tongue over the tiny cut and drew away the blood.

He was careful to only touch the flat end of it when Lance gave him back his hand and ran his fingers over it reverently.

"It was made for your bloodline," he said. "One of the only things that can kill a vampire. If wielded correctly, anyway."

Keith's head snapped towards him abruptly and he dropped the weapon like it had burnt him. It fell to the floor with a clatter and Lance caught his hand before he could recoil, holding him in place as he retrieved the blade and set it back in the boy's palm.

"I'm going to teach you how to hunt," Lance said, his tone light as he carefully wrapped each individual finger back around the hilt until his hand dwarfed Keith's own. The boy's body was rigid and stiff as Lance pressed so his chest melded to Keith's back, guiding his arm out in front of him. He laid his other hand flat against Keith's ribs, feeling over them one by one. "Like me."

The intake of breath Keith took was so sudden it filled his lungs in one go. His eyes went wide and Lance watched with growing interest as Keith lifted careful, trembling fingers and ghosted a touch over the twin scars on his neck. Asking. _Begging_.

"No, Keith," Lance hummed. "I won't turn you."

Keith swallowed thickly and pressed touched the marks again, insistent. Lance ignored him and nosed along the shell of his ear until he quaked with defeat and finally let his hand fall away. Lance rewarded him by digging his fingers into his side and pulling him close.

"This blade will be your fangs. The hunt will be your blood. Each cut, a clean kill. Until we're the same in every way but here," he said, digging his fingers into the meat of the Keith's stomach where his pulse and blood were hammering away inside his body. "I've heard that Marmoran Blades sing to their masters. Does this one sing to you?"

Fingers flexed under his own, either a twitch or a reflex, and Lance watched the throb of the vein in Keith's wrist as the boy took several shallow, steadying breaths, trying to calm his racing heart. The scent of arousal ebbed but did not fade, and gradually the tension in the boy's muscles smoothed itself out; filled each muscle with poise rather than locking them in place.

Keith's fingers tightened around the weapon and he exhaled, and that's when Lance heard it: a subtle but abrupt change in the boy's heartbeat. Keith's eyes closed and he tipped his head back into Lance's shoulder, but gone was the desperation and uncertainty from before.

Lance felt anticipation bubbling inside of him and pressed his hand harder into the boy's stomach.

"Do you hear it?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. Keith nodded. Lance felt the urge to bite into flesh and chose to kiss the area instead. " _Good_."

Very, very good.

Hunters were a funny thing when Lance thought about it. No one could truly say when they'd shown up. One day they simply _were_ : humans gifted with the innate and unnatural ability to kill anything their blades touched. There was something about their hands, he noticed. You could tell a Hunter by the way they handled everyday items, the way they'd turn over an object when it was given to them. There was a hypnotic grace to it, once the ability awoke inside them. Anything that passed through their touch became a weapon.

Keith was no different. There was an ease with which he carried himself once the blade was in his hands; like he knew somewhere in his hindbrain the best way to make use of it. Lance found that he barely needed to involve himself at all. Keith's instincts knew exactly what to do in order to bring down his targets; it was only his body, still growing into itself and clumsy, that held him back. And in time that too changed as his limbs filled out and his muscles strengthened.

Lance started to bring him along when he attended gatherings.

Even in his late teens Keith stuck out like a sore thumb among their kind. He followed after Lance like a second shadow and kept his head down, but there was no disguising the thick scent of warm blood that leeched off of him in waves. Lance secretly delighted at the confused glances that would shoot their way, from vampires unable to make sense of the fact that it was subtle arousal which clung to his human's skin instead of fear.

They were drawn to him like moths to a flame and the sight made Lance preen.

What didn't was their interest in biting him.

Keith was easy to approach; he soaked up the attention of other vampires almost as keenly as he did Lance's, once he gave him a humoring nod. It was entertaining to watch how eager he was for their inspection, for the coy words and empty promises they'd offer. But at the first flash of fang and an unwanted grip from one of them and it was if a switch had been flipped; Lance was halfway to standing when Keith hissed, turning on the vampire with teeth bared and jaw snapping as if he would bite. As if he were _one of them_.

No one had known what to do with such a reaction until Lance burst out laughing, unable to believe what he'd just witnessed. His sides were in stitches when he managed to drag himself over and rip off the offender's head with little more than a flick of his wrist, and the grin on his face seemed permanent as he pressed his fingers against Keith's tongue and stroked his hair.

"You're _adorable_ ," he crooned, and bit him.

Lance stopped leaving him behind when he went out. He took Keith everywhere with him: on social visits to other local dwellings; to extravagant parties where humans were served up fresh and bloodied. Word spread of the strange pet he kept, the boy that acted more vampire than human. And it was true, Lance mused with no shortage of delight. Keith eyed the bound men and woman with the same hungry interest as the vampires around him and his throat flexed in sympathy when he watched them feed.

More than once Lance caught him wetting the tips of his fingers with the discarded blood and grimacing when he tried to take a taste.

Lance wasn't sure what he felt flitting about inside him when he watched Keith in those moments, but he decided he enjoyed it enough to encourage it. He took Keith on his next hunt and the feeling returned in full force. He wasn't surprised that Keith ignored the easy targets that the young, weak, or infirm presented. He knew better than to waste the gift Lance was offering and took his time carefully selecting from the early evening crowds.

The kill was clean, quick, and Lance hummed with interest as Keith bit into their neck as if he actually _could_ , and he must've torn into something important because suddenly it wasn't so clean anymore and Lance was snorting, lifting a hand to his mouth to muffle the sound as Keith coughed and sputtered.

It was only when he placed a hand on Keith's shoulder in sympathy that he managed to get a look at the man he'd taken down and took notice of the darkened skin and short brown hair that framed a dull set of bright blue eyes. Nostalgia hit him, and it took him several moments to realize that the person Keith was trying to feed off of, the man he'd chosen to hunt looked an awful lot like himself.

Was Keith hunting him...?

The feeling burned inside him again, brighter and stronger than before. Lance pinned Keith against the wall with his mouth and swallowed each of the pleased, happy whimpers that escaped him. It was the closest he'd ever come to breaking his silence and Lance growled as he smothered the sounds before they could take root.

By the time he pulled back the taste of blood was gone and Keith was panting, breathless and dazed. His arms hung limp at his sides, and when Lance looked down he could see the straining outline of an erection between his legs.

He took them home, and when Keith was finished vomiting up all the blood he'd consumed, Lance spread him open on his fingers until Keith's legs gave out and hoarse whispers filled the room.

The feeling continued to come and go after that.

Lance felt it most vividly when on a hunt. It was like a pot of water stuck on simmer; Lance could feel it warming beneath his skin when they set out, and every time he urged Keith to pick his kill anticipation would grip his stomach like a vise. The wait to see who it would be, if it would look like _him_ again was almost too much to bear; and even stranger still, the disappointment when Keith chose someone who bore only vague similarity to himself.

He spent more time caressing Keith's neck. He caught him in the middle of changing after a hot shower once and let his hand curl slowly into the meat of his shoulders until each of his fingers slotted themselves neatly onto the thin white scars on his clavicle. Keith's eyes closed as Lance laid his head against him.

"It's beautiful, you know. How you never talk. It's the most perfect thing about you and I have no idea why," he chuckled. Keith swallowed slowly and bared his throat so that Lance could wrap one hand around it and squeeze. It changed the pitch and weight of his breath, and Lance listened to him struggle quietly for several moments before relaxing his grip.

"I want to keep you forever." It was perhaps the most honest thing Lance had ever said to him. Keith took in a shuddery breath and gently place his hand over Lance's and waited patiently until he started to press again.

His breathing turned ragged long before Lance finally let go and told him to finish getting dressed, and he watched with that same fleeting sensation in his chest as Keith staggered drunkenly to obey. Lance waited until the angry red lines on the other's neck disappeared beneath a shirt before he chose to leave.

Lance wasn't the only one to notice the changes in Keith. As a child, he'd been harmless and charming. As a teenager he'd been a novelty. But as he teetered into adulthood he began to handle objects in his hand with a care and fascination that hadn't been there before. It was no longer just the Marmoran Blade which mesmerized him; anything Lance gave him was entrancing.

It made the vampires at their gatherings especially uncomfortable when he sat the young man on the floor beside his leg and allowed Keith to trace the fine seams that ran along his pants like they were the only thing in the world that mattered.

"Isn't it about time you grew bored of this little game of yours?" they asked him. "The Change is beginning to take him. Soon he will awaken fully to his instincts as a Hunter. Just look at him."

Lance watched as Keith unhurriedly dragged two fingers up his leg and drew the pads of them into his mouth when they brushed his lips. His eyes were glazed and bright and he rubbed his cheek slowly against Lance's leg.

"He does appear to be enjoying himself, doesn't he?" he agreed, lips curving in a subtle smile. He plucked at a strand of Keith's hair and enjoyed the soft sigh he felt the other make against his thigh. "I've never witnessed a Hunter's awakening before. Have you?"

It didn't seem to be the right thing to say. A hush fell over the room and unspoken exchanges shot right and left. He saw frowns, steely looks of disapproval—and apprehension. Keith made them nervous, he realized. They were afraid of him. They wanted to put him down before he...what, turned on them? The thought made Lance giddy. His stomach tickled with that same peculiar feeling, only this time it wriggled like dozens of worms trapped inside of him and he dropped his head back against the chair with a high-pitch giggle.

It wasn't until the first time he watched Keith _truly_ kill—not hunt—that Lance understood what that feeling was.

Because there _was_ a difference between the two, he realized. Hunts were something Lance had introduced Keith to. Hunts culminated with a clean slice to the neck, always the neck, of victims that bore his likeness.

Kills were something else entirely. Something that came naturally to Keith in a way nothing else had before. It took a long time for Lance to figure out why Keith spent so much time selecting his victims when they didn't resemble him at all. Keith could spend hours watching someone with rapt, unflinching attention before he made his decision. Some nights he was especially picky and wouldn't choose anyone at all.

It was pure chance that Lance happened to be bored enough to pay attention and noticed that the man Keith had set his eyes on. He was younger, which seemed to be a running theme when it came to Keith's preferences. Lance couldn't really blame him for that. Given the choice he'd opt for it too, but he couldn't see that being a deciding factor for Keith, given he still threw up anytime he tried to drink too much blood.

He was halfway to a smile when he noted the man was lightly drumming his palms against the wall behind him. It wasn't an unusual habit to have, but something about the way he did it struck a chord inside him. Lance watched him for a long time before he noticed Keith watching him.

"That one?" he asked.

Keith nodded.

"Why?"

Keith could only stare at him, and for once Lance didn't go searching for the answers in his eyes. He just nodded and later watched with bated breath as Keith buried his blade into the center of the man's chest, right below his sternum. He didn't touch the blood.

When he returned to Lance he was dazed and had a frenzied look in his eyes. He handed his soaked blade over to Lance wordlessly and dropped to his knees with a shudder, eyes closed.

The next person Keith chose chewed gum. They liked to run their tongue over their lips between each bubble and always waited five minutes exactly before blowing another. The person after that picked their nails to stubs. The one after that smoked and burnt each stick to the filter. None of them shared any defining physical traits, but all of them had a quirk: a fascination with _touch_.

Suddenly it all made sense and Lance couldn't believe he didn't notice sooner. Keith was hunting his own kind.

No—not hunting. That wasn't the word. Killing. He was _killing_ them; Hunters that had yet to come into themselves, just like him. It occurred to him that they must've gotten things backwards somewhere along the way. It was a mistake to call them Hunters. Vampires were hunters. This...

This was something else entirely, and for once in his un-life Lance had no idea what to do with it. He was among the stunned and speechless onlookers when Keith went from docile and pliant one moment, to having his blade plunged into a Hunter at their next gathering. No one had seen either human move. None of them had even noticed the Hunter's presence to begin with. One minute Keith had been resting at his side, eyes lidded and lulled, and the next he was halfway across the room with his blade buried in the armored chest of a Hunter, his jaw open and poised over their throat.

No one knew what to do. What _Keith_ would do. The feeling returned in full force, cold and paralyzing and gut-wrenching.

Lance didn't move as Keith slowly climbed to his feet and pulled his knife from their body with a wet sound. When he turned Lance could see his eyes were nothing but fire. They burned, bright and fierce and _determined_ as he made his way back over to Lance with long strides. Not a soul moved to stop him. Somewhere along the way Keith dropped the weapon and in the back of his mind he registered the clang of metal hitting wood, but then blood-slicked gloves were on his face and Keith was dragging him forward into a searing kiss.

He didn't even think before letting Keith in, parting his lips only to be devoured beneath hot lips and hungry teeth. Keith bent him back, hands groping, tugging, pulling, and Lance moaned. He didn't think about the Hunter lying dead on the floor, didn't think about the shocked and uncomfortable stares of his peers.

It was the first time they'd kissed without any sort of blood between them, he noted dimly, and Keith must have read his mind because when he finally pulled back, it was only for a second before he was shoving two fingers into Lance's mouth. He groaned and sucked the blood from them without hesitation, hands coming up to tug at the thick, dark curls of hair at the back of Keith's head. He barely registered being pushed until his back was up against the wall and Keith's fingers popped out of his mouth with a grunt, but too-warm lips were there to claim his in an instant and Lance bit at them hungrily.

He didn't remember leaving the party. Didn't remember the trip home. What he did were steady hands pushing down on his neck from behind, keeping him pinned to the bed. Warm lips pressing into the cool skin along his spine. Bloody fingers in his mouth, and _oh, those were nice_. Then pressure, a rhythmic grinding, and the sound of breathing; his own, muted and barely-present, and Keith's: stilted, thick, and deep.

Sex was a strange affair, he thought, long after Keith had drifted off at his side. He wondered if it always felt as good as it looked, for them. He wondered if he'd enjoyed it, when he'd been alive. What it felt like. He thought about Keith above him, eyes filled with lust and yearning. He thought about the trickle of sweat he'd watched roll slowly down the human's neck, over the bite marks he'd let scar on purpose, and how beautiful it had seemed at the time.

He thought about the full-bodied shudder Keith had given when Lance reached up to touch him, how every muscle in his body had gone taut when he stroked his face. He thought about the way Keith had thumbed reverently at his chest long after he'd finished, eyes glazed and hazy, and wondered if he cared that Lance couldn't feel the same.

To be human was such a peculiar thing Lance sometimes couldn't remember if he'd ever been one in the first place. Objectively he knew he must have, vampires didn't pop into existence any more than Hunters did. But when he thought about it he realized he could recall very little about the person who'd turned him. Nothing came to mind when he tried to conjure their image inside his head. He didn't remember their face or even the sound of their voice.

There was nothing but a vague sense of touch, like cold fingers on his lips. Lance mimicked the gesture on himself as he stared into Keith's sleeping face, watching the minute twitches in his brow.

He could turn Keith, if he really wanted to. He could keep him like this forever at his side. Keith would never have to grow old. He would finally be able to drink blood, just like he'd always wanted. Lance could spend an eternity molding and shaping him into whatever he wanted, like a sculptor with clay.

The thought brought a sharp smile to Lance's lips and he reached over to slowly drag his thumb across Keith's lips. They were warm, supple. And when he applied the tiniest bit of pressure they parted automatically in a way that made Lance irresistibly hungry.

It was the most wonderful thing that when he leaned in to eventually take a bite, Keith's eyes snapped open and he uttered not a sound, mouth hanging open and arms limp on either side of him. He didn't fight back, didn't struggle, and Lance could feel each eager throb that ran through the artery where his fangs had pierced it. Apprehension and excitement tasted thick and acidic on his tongue and Lance drank it up like fine wine, gulping down greedy mouthfuls.

He felt Keith tip his head back and suck in a watery breath, lungs filling with air in preparation for a groan, and Lance clapped a hand tightly over his mouth to prevent it with a purr. Keith shook with a silent whimper that Lance approved of much more and took another long draught.

By the time he pulled back Keith was pale and shivering beneath him, beads of sweat collecting in his brow and sticking hair to his forehead. There was a glossy quality to his eyes he'd never seen before, and Lance thought it looked especially becoming on him. He'd never taken so much from him before. Keith looked almost ill, and it stirred something deep and affectionate inside his chest when he watched Keith's shudder so.

When shaking hands reached for him unsteadily Lance leaned obligingly into their touch and smiled. He watched as Keith's lips trembled with the start of half-formed pleas and shook his head with a soft tut.

"No, Keith."

Fingers stroked over his cheekbones, imploring, twitching in a way that was almost too easy to miss. He was being mapped, explored and studied in a way that only made sense to the man beneath him. The cold, icy wriggling in his gut and veins returned and spread to his skin, prickling it with goosebumps. It gripped him just like it had before and Lance felt immobile. Air he didn't need caught in his throat.

Keith's hands slid down to his jawline, and Lance had the dizzying realization that maybe he wasn't excited after all. Maybe what he'd been experiencing all this time, these moments where something all-encompassing had twisted every nerve in his body like a live wire, was something else entirely.

He was afraid.

Keith frightened him.

Gentle hands slid down to his neck and Keith shifted against him again, plaintive and panting. They felt cooler than normal. Lance didn't know if that upset him or not as his eyes drifted shut and blunt nails dug into the grooves of his muscles, beseeching.

"No, Keith." His voice was barely a whisper.

Wet lips pressed into the swell of his throat and Lance didn't fight it when Keith slowly pulled him down onto the bed. He didn't object as he was laid out on his back and didn't open his eyes when he felt the tender stroke of Keith's tongue laving over his skin. Lips followed, mouthing words against his neck that Lance couldn't hear.

"No—"

The wet crunch of flesh giving under pressure cut him off. There was a gasp, then _pain_ and all of a sudden Lance realized that it was _him_ and Keith's teeth were buried in his neck, tearing into his skin until blood spilled forth and drained onto the sheets beneath him.

"Keith," he said, and the sound was choked. " _Keith_."

Keith's jaw bit down harder and Lance gasped in terrified delight. His shoulder was wet in seconds. It hardly seemed possible that he was bleeding so much, so fast. Was it normal for vampires to bleed like this? He'd never paid attention before. It had never seemed to matter, but now Lance found himself fixated on it, on the wet sounds Keith made as he lapped and sucked at his neck. He'd only just fed but didn't feel his body trying to stitch itself back together.

There was only the wet smack of hungry lips as everything that made him up bled out of him and seeped into Keith.

Lance closed his eyes as himself.

They opened theirs together.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please feel free to check out my other WIP Klance fic, "The Dreaming Dark", right [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13755324) You can also reach me on tumblr @ [pterodotyl](http://pterodotyl.tumblr.com/)


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